Proud to be the female-lead for a successful business, which provides a valuable service to children and grown-ups

International Women’s Day is a great reminder and an opportunity to celebrate the successes and achievements of all the women in our lives.

I’m proud that Kidzplay & Little Bees benefits from a strong team of women and men who are all valued for their individuality, their strengths and what they bring to our business.

As female-led businesses make up less than 17% of all businesses in the UK and they receive around 1% of all business funding, it really is an achievement to have made it this far and to be continuing to grow to support our communities.

The Kidzplay & Little Bees journey:

I have been running Kidzplay & Little Bees for over 15 years, a journey that started out when my own children were young. The local play provision at the time wasn’t suitable for all children and left a lot to be desired. I set out to create the high standard of soft play centres we benefit from today. Since then, Kidzplay & Little Bees have developed the play experience into what it is today, focusing on giving kids the opportunity of experiencing all different types of play within the centre.

We have always wanted the play centres to be a good community space for all to share and grow, as a result we take the time to employ exceptional people in our teams. We are totally committed to recycling and becoming zero waste venues, committed to developing young people through our in-house training schemes and apprenticeships. Giving kids the best time, Mums some much-needed rest and catch-up social time is our reason for being, bringing together connected communities.

Authentic Play sessions:

The addition of our Authentic Play sessions (these are sometimes called messy play or heuristic play) is just one of the aspects that makes Kidzplay & Little Bees stand out from other soft play centres.

We are delighted to have Lesley, an enormously qualified and experienced childcare expert on our team. What she doesn’t know about kids playing and development could be written on a postage stamp. Her knowledge, expertise and ideas have transformed our play experience because we can now “explain the why” behind how.

• Why is that piece of play equipment crucial to a child’s development?
• Why is allowing a child to experience multi-sensory activities independently important?
• Why does allowing a child to make a mess help them develop confidence?

As a team, we are fully committed to “explaining the why”. It gives a great insight into your child, why they are behaving as they are and how you can help.

We love what we do at Kidzplay & Little Bees:

We are fortunate to be working in an environment where having fun is our focus, play is day-to-day activity and it is our job to enable others to enjoy their time with us.

Creating safe spaces where children can play independently, and grown-ups feel supported, and part of a community is what we aim to achieve.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2023 is ‘Embrace Equity’, play, by its very nature enables equity – sharing, taking turns, learning about, understanding, and celebrating different abilities are all parts of ‘play’ that make it fun.

Our exciting plans for the future:

Kidzplay & Little Bees – our vision is to be the UK’s first community connected by children’s play

We provide our community with memorable and authentic experiences delivered with enthusiasm in play and a passion for our people.

Our centres provide our community with the best play to play.

Online, we connect our community through shared learnings and experiences.

Kidzplay your way